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Armed Forces Personnel

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. From memory, I believe that the current position is that the sea cadets have 60 per cent. funding from the Ministry of Defence and 40 per cent. charitable funding through the excellent work of the Sea Cadet Association. It is unique in receiving less money than the other cadet forces and perhaps has less access to facilities as a result of naval bases being on the coast while sea cadet units can be far inland, as in the case of landlocked Shropshire. I hope that the Government’s move towards supporting certain youth services and cadet forces does not lead to others being overlooked. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission was mentioned earlier. I congratulate it on doing an excellent job, and I hope that the Government will ensure that it is looked after in any future spending review. It is absolutely right that our war graves be maintained, and that our fallen heroes are honoured in the way that befits their sacrifice. However, I hope that the Minister will ensure that the history of our wars continues to be taught in schools, and that there is not a slippage into political correctness. I hope that it is not decided that some of the sacrifices that have been made on our country’s behalf are too horrific for young people to hear about. I encourage the Minister to speak to his colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills, and to see whether it and the MOD can co-operate to enable children to visit war graves in continental Europe. If that is too costly, perhaps they could visit places such as Brookwood, in Surrey, and war graves in Cambridgeshire and throughout the country. Indeed, they could even visit their own local first and second world war memorials. Does the Minister know whether the Prime Minister has found time to visit the sick and injured personnel—if he has such knowledge, it has passed me by thus far—wounded in recent wars such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq? Many people would be very surprised to hear that the Prime Minister, notwithstanding his busy diary, had not found time to visit those personnel, given their sacrifice and the fact that it was pretty much the Prime Minister’s lead that resulted in our troops being sent to the front line. I should be interested to hear the Minister’s answer to that question. Finally, I want to pay tribute to all colleagues present in the House today. This has been a good-spirited debate, and let us remember that we are all in this together. It is important that we succeed in both Iraq and Afghanistan—[Interruption.] Oh yes—we are all in this together. The personnel about whom we have spoken today deserve everything that we are able to give them in terms of kit and equipment, financial support and, most of all, moral and political support.